


Intravenous

by what_alchemy



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Cocaine, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-18
Updated: 2011-08-18
Packaged: 2017-10-22 18:58:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 687
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/241433
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/what_alchemy/pseuds/what_alchemy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fixing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Intravenous

It is a ritual.

Mendelssohn through tinny laptop speakers, a down duvet spread open on the couch. Sinew and tendon, stretched out. A thrumming anticipation ignites in your blood. It makes you itch, makes you yearn.

The tourniquet you use is black silk ribbon — a characteristic sense of dramatic style, the preferred choice. Blue veins like tender secrets just under skin as pale as buttermilk. They are quiescent; you will flush them out, you will stand them at attention as if before a firing squad. You drape the ribbon just below the bicep, sensuous silk on skin, taking your time, savouring the sultry breath in your lungs. Under the elbow, you tuck the far end of the ribbon around the inside end and pull a loop through the resulting ring. Quick, your hands are a moth wings’ blur, pulling the other end of the ribbon tight, tight, a hot flash of pain tight and there’s a gasp and then the tiniest sound of relief like a discreet lover’s exhalation. It’s not quite a knot; it will come undone at the flick of a wrist, at the will of the sybarite.

And there’s the ticket, roused from slumber and so eager for it: a sluggish turquoise, round and heavy with promise. Aching.

You will do this properly. You will take good care.

The alcohol swab is pungent, acrid in your nostrils, but you’re conditioned now and that’s the smell that heralds euphoria, the sharp seams of clarity — you’re already growing hard, your bollocks throbbing, your cock nosing hotly at the slit in your pants at the very thought of what will happen when you finish this fix. The first thrust of him inside you will be just like the needle slipping in — a moment’s flare of pain, the cool wash of relief, and then ecstasy. Ecstasy.

And God, that’s just it, isn’t it? That’s precisely the ham-fisted metaphor that encapsulates the nature of your union. Somehow this flawed and mortal man has burrowed into the very marrow of you, become essential. He’s in your veins, rearranging the balance of the chemicals in your body, making you unrecognisable, making you need him like he’s the drop of water to your swollen tongue, like he’s the oxygen in a gas chamber, and you are helpless, addicted, dehydrated, asphyxiating. He gets inside you, your favourite infection, a ravaging force. The perfect way to end it all.

You wipe the swab over the waiting vein and toss it to the floor — can’t be arsed now — and from the glass of hot water on the coffee table you lift your syringe. It’s fresh from the plastic; stupidity is something you’re rarely accused of. That battered box of Victorian gear salvaged from God knows where — it would be poetic and romantic, but the needles are huge and dull with no recourse for repair, and they perforate delicate skin, bulls in china shops. It’s hardly elegant, and the set doesn’t stand against comparison to modern works, ‘bloody proletariat NHS-issue’ though they might be. They will do.

A seven percent solution is just the thing. You tap it on the edge of the glass, hold it up to the dim light. Firm flicks with your nails against the barrel make certain there are no stray air bubbles, no embolisms on the horizon. No overdoses either — you are a consummate professional.

You lay the bevel of the needle against the taut vein. There’s the pit-pat pulse in there, proof of life. This heartbeat, this lifeline, this dizzying consumption — this is where you live now. You press the plunger forward, steady, measured, practiced, and again there is that sharp intake of breath — the agony of perfect elation. A flutter and the tourniquet is released; blood like the darkest wine blooms in the dregs of the milky solution before it’s all pushed out into the pumping, rushing, coursing universe of your lover’s impossible body. He turns huge, glassy pupils on you, ringed in silver, and he looks at you as if you are all the colours and all the sounds. Your cock leaps within its confines.

“ _John_ ,” he breathes.


End file.
